Cheerfulness works, it is one of the best way to make me a return customer.
But that's not just cheerfulness, it is the idea that the service rep cares about me. Cheerfulness means "I am happy to be with you, I love my job, I will do my best for you to leave you satisfied". Of course as a customer I want that! But then, if like with most chatbots, I feel no intent to actually work on solving my problem, it goes straight down the uncanny valley. What are you? Happy to not help me? What's your problem? If it wasn't obvious from the start, that's typically a dead giveaway that I am dealing with a bot.
Actual people who are good at their job will know to put the right emotion for the situation, including a lot of cheerfulness, but only when appropriate. Bots don't get that. If they can't play the human game, just let them be machines, no useless emotions, keep things factual, short and to the point.
Yes. A polite machine is just annoying. Having a computer program say "thank you" is meaningless.
I've always wanted a navigator for my car that was rude. "Wake up! You should have turned back there, you fakking kahnt! A bleedin' monkey could drive better than that!" A library of a few thousand insults should keep it from getting too boring.
This goes back to the game Empire I wrote long ago. It was the only game I'd heard of where you weren't liberating cities, you weren't the good guy. You were the bad guy - subjugating cities, putting them under iron control, crushing your enemies. Your underlings replied with "yes master". Your armies would march off the boat and drown if you ordered it.
But that's not just cheerfulness, it is the idea that the service rep cares about me. Cheerfulness means "I am happy to be with you, I love my job, I will do my best for you to leave you satisfied". Of course as a customer I want that! But then, if like with most chatbots, I feel no intent to actually work on solving my problem, it goes straight down the uncanny valley. What are you? Happy to not help me? What's your problem? If it wasn't obvious from the start, that's typically a dead giveaway that I am dealing with a bot.
Actual people who are good at their job will know to put the right emotion for the situation, including a lot of cheerfulness, but only when appropriate. Bots don't get that. If they can't play the human game, just let them be machines, no useless emotions, keep things factual, short and to the point.